


Snälla bli min (Please become mine)

by notupforpolo



Series: My hand in my pocket even though I care [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bands, Childhood Friends, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Nakamoto Yuta is a Little Shit, Soft Kim Jungwoo (NCT), Solo Idol Kim Jungwoo, Suh Youngho | Johnny is a Good Friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27506524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notupforpolo/pseuds/notupforpolo
Summary: Doyoung and Jungwoo was just having some fun, doing some things that were seen as risky for two idols to do. They though they were fine, until a photo of them surfaced, landing both of them in a scandal. Jungwoo is hit harder and Doyoung just wants him to be happy.(This is a sequel to "Händanefter (Henceforth)" but it can be read as a stand-alone.)
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Kim Jungwoo
Series: My hand in my pocket even though I care [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010262
Kudos: 25





	Snälla bli min (Please become mine)

**Author's Note:**

> CW: talking about having one's sexuality outed
> 
> This is a sequel to "Händanefter (Henceforth)" but it can be read as a stand-alone. Although, it hits harder if you read the "Hädanefter" first.

When Doyoung came back home he already knew what was coming. Johnny had texted him as soon as the articles started popping up. Johnny’s messages, although kind, hadn’t really mattered. Doyoung would be an idiot if he had missed everything that was going on. It was the top search on Naver and was trending worldwide on Twitter. Article upon article about the pictures. Those god damned pictures.

How it was possible for innocent pictures to ruin careers was still a mystery to Doyoung. To all of Doyoung’s friends. To a lot of people. A fan had taken pictures to fill a fantasy, and somehow they had gotten attention. Then more pictures had been released. Suddenly, an entire timeline had been created, with proof behind it. It had blown up on thanks to netizens. Korean media had eaten it up.

The company didn’t really know what to think. The attention was great; the sinking stocks, not so much. They could just deny it, like every other time. It wasn’t the first time their artists had gotten caught up in scandals. It wasn’t even the first time an Airship member had been rumoured to have acted like actual humans. But this was different.

The door closed silently behind Doyoung. Carefully he slid off his trainers and put them next to the door. He could hear voices from the kitchen, it sounded like an argument. Before he was mentally ready, a voice overpowered the others. 

“Doyoung?”

Doyoung studied the hallway that led to the kitchen quickly. His room was just past it. If he made a run for it he could make it. His stamina may be bad, but his legs were long. He had food in his room to last him at least two days, three if he was sparse. If he ran now he wouldn’t have to face them. 

But it was more responsible to talk to them. If he was the reason their careers were going to get ruined, he owed them at least that. He started walking with slow steps towards the kitchen. Doyoung was an adult. A twenty-five-year-old didn’t escape and lock themselves in their room when they faced confrontation. Doyoung would be staring at the floor as the manager told him he was irresponsible, and defend himself without looking him in the eye. 

“Yes?” came the hesitant answer. His feet were still rooted to the spot. His mind didn’t know if it wanted to run or stay, so his body locked itself in place. Of all the things that were running through his mind, two stood out.

Are they going to hate me?

Is he okay?

“Doyoung, could you come here for a moment, please.” the band’s manager’s voice rang out. Jungsu was nice, he always stood up for them, however, Doyoung knew even Jungsu had a limit to what he could condone. He was still responsible for them, and he worked for the company at the end of the day.

Slowly Doyoung started walking towards the kitchen. He could smell fried chicken. It was around dinnertime, they had probably ordered in. The hallway walls were a sterile white colour. As Doyoung walked in his slow pace, he noticed more and more small dents in it. Ones that he hadn’t thought about before. 

They had come from instruments swung by accident. Most of them probably from that. Maybe they had come home drunk and hit the wall with their jackets or shoes. One was from when Yuta had thrown a chopstick at Johnny. He had thrown it a bit too hard and now Doyoung could see a small circle-shaped dent. Was this going to be the last time he could ever inspect these dents? 

He walked the last few steps that lead up to the kitchen entrance. It was an open kitchen, no need to hesitate when he was already there. The smell of food coming in stronger. 

The entire band was sitting at the table, Jungsu was leaning on the kitchen counter. Doyoung scanned the room for two seconds. Everything looked as usual. Other than Jungsu being there everything was in its place. One chair was empty at the table. Chicken enough to feed a large class of children was placed on the table. All the cupboards and countertops were slightly dirty, not having been properly wiped off in at least a week. A couple of pictures and a schedule was stuck to the fridge door. 

But what Doyoung focused on were their faces. Jungsu wasn’t even looking at him yet. He was frowning as he wrote something on his phone. Kun and Taeil looked up at him as soon as he was visible. They almost looked worried. Yuta was intently inspecting the piece of fried chicken he was holding up with his chopstick. The Japanese man barely glanced at Doyoung before his eyes were back on the chicken. Johnny was smirking.

“Are you okay?” No, Taeil was definitely worried.

“Yeah… why?” Doyoung took a long pause as his eyes narrowed. “No, wait actually – what? You are meant to be angry. I mean, I hope you aren’t but you are supposed to be.”

His face could very well have been mistaken for a question mark if someone was just to quickly pass by. An angry question mark if you looked a bit closer. Doyoung was still standing in the kitchen opening but his body was now fully turned towards the people in the kitchen. The idea of fleeing to his room was forgotten.

The guitarist could see how both Taeil and Yuta were about to speak but Jungsu beat them to it. “The company is a bit angry, I’m not going to lie. But, most articles are about your friend. You mostly come up as a side note.” He looked up from his phone. “There are still going to be consequences though. Not every one of your fans is going to ignore the fact that you went to a gay club.”

“It was Jungwoo’s idea.” Doyoung was serious as he said it, but even he realised he sounded like a grumpy child. He was not going to show that though, his ego was not about to take that blow.

Taeil spoke up this time, ignoring the younger’s comment. “Where have you been? We were worried something had happened when you didn’t come home or text back.” 

Doyoung now felt like a child too. He looked down at the floor again. Not really sure what to say. Why didn’t he go straight to the dorm when the news broke? Was he scared of their reaction or did he not want to face his own actions? Did he even know the answer himself?

“I was scared you were going to kick me out of Airship.” His gaze was burning holes in the wall, his arms were limp at his sides but he didn’t miss a beat. “Since the fans were going to be mad. I know I messed up, okay.”

“Doyoung you are so stupid.” Yuta stood up, put his phone on the table and grabbed a piece of chicken. He walked across the from the table to where Doyoung stood and, to everyone’s (no one’s) surprise, showed the chicken into Doyoung’s half-opened mouth. As the action slowly registered in Doyoung’s brain, he closed his mouth in an astonished manner. The chicken, however, was not the weirdest thing Yuta did in ten seconds. 

No, the weirdest thing Yuta did was hug Doyoung tightly. 

After having embraced the guitarist, the bassist pulled away from him and started pulling him toward the table. Even though Doyoung didn’t really have the time to meet Jungsu's eye, he sure caught the small smile that was displayed on his lips. 

Yuta forced Doyoung down onto the empty chair and simply said: “Eat and explain. We aren’t going to kick you out but we want to know what happened.”

“Let the man eat without choking, Yuta.” laughed Kun. “We sort of need him to sing.” Taeil snorted softly but didn’t comment. Johnny, seeing the opening, shouted out in mock excitement. “I can sing.” Taeil snorted again. Kun practically giggled. “The drummer doesn’t sing.”

“Neither do you, subvocal.” Yuta’s voice was clear as day. He covered up the comment with an innocent smile. 

“Boys,” Jungsu said, “even though this is entertaining to listen to, we have more important matters that need to be discussed.” His face turned serious and the members of the band calmed down slightly too quickly. Doyoung knew that his bandmates acting like that was a way to pull him out of his shell. In theory, he knew that, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed. 

Jungsu pulled out a spare stool that was stood in the kitchen and sat down at the head of the table. He placed his phone down in front of him, put his hands next to it. “First of all, I just need to hear from you what happened,” He paused but added “Why you and Jungwoo thought it was a good idea at all is a good way to start.“ before Doyoung had a chance to speak. 

“Well, as I said it was Jungwoo’s idea,” Some of the prior fear had disappeared and Doyoung was speaking with a surprising amount of ease. “He said that, if we wanted to pretend we never fell out, we should do stuff we would in our early twenties if we weren’t idols.” Doyoung realised now how that didn’t make sense at all, but oh well. What had been done was done. No way to change it.

“I told him it was an awful idea because it was, but he said that it would be fun and so on. So we went,” Doyoung was fiddling with his fingers under the table again. “And we were in some private area with-” Doyoung cut himself off and thought about his next words. “Some other celebrities. Then Jungwoo said we should go to the other area of the club. This time I was really confident with my no, so he just shrugged and went by himself.”

A small smile was creeping up on Doyoung’s lips. The other members noticed it immediately. They had seen it before.

Before Doyoung and Jungwoo had reconnected, the small smile was often present when Jungwoo was mentioned. It was a sentimental smile then. It told the others that Doyoung was thinking of old memories that they didn’t know about. Because when they asked Doyoung about his time with Jungwoo, he never gave a straight answer. He didn’t really smile either.

But after they had begun talking again, the members noticed that Doyoung’s smile wasn’t regretful or longing, it was just a happy smile. Perhaps shy was an adjective you could use. Airship liked that smile on their guitarist. 

“About half an hour or so later he came back and said that we could leave. So we did. I swear it wasn’t more than that.” Doyoung wasn’t finished, but Jungsu started. “How come people saw you there then? If you were in a private area?” His voice wasn’t mean in the slightest, it was encouraging an honest answer. Doyoung would have given the manager that anyway. 

“Probably when we left. We had to wait outside for a taxi for a couple of minutes. Then this morning I went to the company to try to write some songs, and then the pictures of Jungwoo – and me – came out. So I just stayed at the company a little longer.”

Yuta scoffed. “You are ridiculous Kim Dongyoung. You have been hanging out with Jungwoo for six months and you are already ready to risk your career.”

“Well, we have almost ten years to catch up on.” laughed Doyoung awkwardly. Deep down he knew Yuta was joking, but he couldn’t help it. It was still a bit of a sore spot. 

“Okay. Thank you for being honest, Doyoung. If this blows up for you we are going to have to issue a statement, but the media's focus seems to be Jungwoo, so we should be fine.” With that, Jungsu stood up, bid them all goodbye, gave Doyoung a pointed look, and left. The band heard the door close behind him, and then it was quiet. 

Johnny took a piece of chicken. Kun went and got some more sauce from the fridge. Yuta was dissecting his food. Taeil was staring at Doyoung.

“Have you talked to Jungwoo?” asked Taeil.

“No.”

“You should.” Yuta put the chicken in his mouth.

“Before you do that you need to eat,” Kun said as he sat down. Doyoung looked at Kun, then at Taeil and then the food. “Maybe I should talk to Jungwoo first.”

“I love Jungwoo and all but have you eaten today?” Johnny shoved food in his mouth, which made it the second time that day Doyoung was force feed.

“Yes, I had breakfast,” he mumbled after he had chewed a little. 

“Okay, that means that you should eat now. Listen to your elders.”

“Kun is literally a month older than me.” 

Kun smiled. “Eat, maknae.”

“I still want to check on Jungwoo. I mean, my situation is nothing compared to his,” the other members exchanged glances among themselves. Doyoung had turned serious in five seconds. The outline of his phone could be seen in his pocket. “I went on Naver when I got your text.” He motioned to Johnny.

“Doyoung…”

“I know that’s the opposite of what we are supposed to do, but I had to see,” Doyoung’s voice was devastated. His face made him look desperate. “They are eating him alive. His fans are turning on him.” 

Johnny put a hand on his shoulder. 

“And I can’t do anything. I can’t say anything because the company says so, and I have literally nothing to say. I can only talk to him. That’s it. ” Doyoung was eerily calm as he said it. Because, if anything, Kim Doyoung was a logical person. After he had actually heard what the company and his manager and everyone had to say, he was able to examine the situation. The situation was calm for him. The heat was on Jungwoo.

So if he said anything unprovoked it would make things worse, not better. It would make things worse for him. It would make things worse for Airship. If the world decided to fuck with him really good it would be bad for the company. So Doyoung couldn’t really do anything.  
Only silent support behind the scenes.

“Eat. Then call him tomorrow. He is probably in deep shit, so he won't be able to answer.” The words would have been mean if anyone other than Yuta had uttered them. But now it was the bassist that had spoken.

And Doyoung knew he was right. 

––错误––

The first thing Doyoung did when he woke up the next morning was search Jungwoo’s name. Or, well, he didn’t need to write any letters into the search bar. His name was still trending. He could see more articles, more comments. He even saw his own name a couple of times. Then some more times. After a while, he found an article with his name in the headline. 

The article had mostly been about Jungwoo. Doyoung had been clickbait. He got the urge to launch his already cracked phone across the room. 

So Doyoung clicked away from Naver and opened his kakaotalk instead. It was just as lively there. The still unread messages from his managers, members individually and the airship group chat were quickly sped through. It had just been them screaming at Doyoung to come back to the dorm. 

He had gotten a message from his mum and dad, asking if he was okay. That they had seen his name in some articles. Doyoung typed out short but sweet replies. Telling them that everything was fine and that he missed them. He wrote the same thing to his brother. Gongmyung was in the jungle with a variety show, but he would ask soon enough.

His other celebrity friends had texted him too. Jinyoung and Jisoo had asked him about everything in the JinJiDo group chat. The three of them had become friends by accident. All lost by their groups at some end of the year music show. Doyoung told them what had happened. He trusted them, and they understood. Both having been in scandals too.

Doyoung answered some others.

There were two chats he didn’t want to look at. One with an unread message and one that was still empty. He decided to open the message. Taeyongie said the display name.

 **Lee Taeyong (yesterday, 13:22):**  
Does anyone know? Did you tell anyone?

 **Kim Doyoung (7:54)**  
No. I didn’t tell anyone.  
But I can’t answer for Jungwoo, I've not spoken to him.  
But I don't think he’ll tell on you.

Doyoung wanted to be mad at Taeyong. He figured it would be nice to just be angry. Maybe even satisfying to tell him he was being heartless. Doyoung started typing something along those lines at first. That Taeyong only cared about himself and that his only concern was his image. 

Doyoung erased it as fast as he wrote it. Taeyong only wanted to survive in all of this. Just like Doyoung himself did. It had just been an unfortunate coincidence. If it wasn’t for Doyoung and Jungwoo, Taeyong wouldn’t even have to worry. So why get mad?

He saw the little one appear, signalling that Taeyong had read it. He didn’t really expect an answer, so he wasn’t sure why he felt let down when one didn’t come. They weren’t even that close anymore. They hung out, occasionally. Doyoung even featured on one of Taeyong and Mark’s songs. But the duo was so incredibly famous nowadays. They simply didn’t really have time to get close. 

They mostly reminisce of their trainee days when they meet. It was casual, never even bothering to scrape more than the surface. No deep conversations, no going further than friends. Therefore it was easy to hang out with Taeyong. Of course, Doyoung knew his friend was gay. That sort of thing is hard to not know if you’ve known someone for close to nine years, no matter how not close you are. 

But what Doyoung hadn’t known was that Taeyong was going to gay clubs every now and then. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe this was a one-time thing and he had just been unlucky that Doyoung and Jungwoo had been there too. 

Doyoung didn’t dwell on it. Taeyong had been there and Taeyong had asked for Doyoung’s silence. It wasn’t hard at all to understand why. So who was Doyoung to be mean?  
He, however, still had things to do. One last contact to open. 

**Kim Doyoung (8:01)**  
Hey, are you okay?  
Do you wanna talk?

For three minutes he stared at his phone. The tiny read symbol showed up after one minute. The typing one did not. After three minutes his anxiety won over his common sense and he went on Twitter again. Jungwoo’s name was trending.

Even though his English wasn’t the best, he wasn’t an idiot. He could understand the tweets completely. A lot of Jungwoo’s international fans were supporting him, but many were not. He saw his own name a couple of times, most people knew he and Jungwoo were friends. 

It was the Korean fans who were truly angry for the most part. For nine minutes he was on Twitter. Scrolling and scrolling through tweet after tweet with Jungwoo’s name in it. Both good and bad. The only reason he stopped was that he got a notification at the top of his phone. He read it for a split second then he had clicked on it. He was transported to the kakao app.

 **Kim Jungwoo (8:12)**  
Yeah, I’m fine I guess. It’s just been a hard day.  
My company’s been at it since yesterday.  
Do you wanna meet up and talk or something?

 **Kim Doyoung (8:12)**  
Yes. We need to talk and all.  
How about your flat?  
No one will see us there.

 **Kim Jungwoo (8:14)**  
Sure.  
Can you come today at 11?   
I understand if it doesn’t work.

 **Kim Doyoung (8:15)**  
No, today is fine.   
You know I have a break this week.  
I’ll be there at eleven.

 **Kim Jungwoo (8:15)**  
Okay. See you later.

See you later. A promise? No, a reassurance. Doyoung was going to be fine. Suley he was going to be just fine.

––放心––

Jungwoo led Doyoung to the sofa in his living room when Doyoung arrived at 11 o’clock sharp. During the last months, Doyoung had been there a lot. Jungwoo loved alone in a gated area, Doyoung lived in a flat with four other men in an apartment complex close to their company. It was colourfully decorated, with small trinkets on every shelf, but still never crossed over the line too messy. Most day’s there was some food in the fridge, although Jungwoo didn’t often cook when he had people over. Really, the only downside to visiting Jungwoo was that it was significantly harder to order food. Doyoung offered to cook once, but it had ended in both of them laying on the floor of the kitchen because Jungwoo had had one simple task to do and still managed to use salt instead of sugar.

The blue sofa was soft, a few pillows strewn across it. Doyoung moved one away from him as he sat down in a corner, placing his jean jacket at the armrest so he was left in only his t-shirt. Jungwoo sat just across from him. Two glasses of water were sitting on coasters at the small table, along with a small bowl of some kind of nuts. Doyoung saw the water and let out a quiet sigh. He would let that be his crutch if he was going to need one. 

“I’m sorry,” said Doyoung with an even voice, locking eyes with Jungwoo.

“For what?” Jungwoo didn’t look away. His voice was calm, a luke-warm tone. Doyoung panicked for a second, his mouth falling open a moment before he spoke. “If–”

“You did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong.” Jungwoo let his gaze wander away, his eyes losing focus. Doyoung stopped himself from answering as he tried to capture a coherent thought. He brought his hands up, towards the other man, but let them fall away before they got very far. He placed them in his lap before he spoke again. 

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

“No.”

Doyoung tentatively moved his body forward, Jungwoo followed. Soon they were hugging. Doyoung was holding Jungwoo, patting the back of his head. “It’s going to be fine. It’s not going to be the same, but it’s going to be fine.”

“I don’t know what to do Doyoung.” The sound was muffled. Doyoung felt a spot on his shirt getting wet and Jungwoo had begun shaking. He didn’t know what to do either, so he did nothing. He said nothing. He only held Jungwoo as he cried.

“Kiss me,” came Jungwoo’s muffled voice. Doyoung’s eyes widened as he lifted his neck to look down. “Please,” Jungwoo spoke up again, moving his head up to look at Doyoung, pushing himself slightly away from the body embracing him to get a better look. Jungwoo’s cheeks were red and blotchy, his nose slightly runny, and the tears that kept on falling creating a pool at the tip of his chin. He sniffled and lowered his head as Doyoung didn’t say anything. Jungwoo’s shoulders dropping and moving forward instinctively.

Loud ringing was filling Doyoung’s ears. The sofa underneath him felt weird. The fabric was scraping against hs bare arm. He shifted only to be met with the rough fabric of his jacket instead. Something cold was suddenly touching his elbow so he jerked his arm away and it landed on something soft finally. Doyoung was able to focus again and his first priority was to find out where his hand had landed. Slowly, he followed the line of his harm and halted when he was at his hand. The soft fabric was Jungwoo’s shirt. Doyoung’s hand was on the very top of Jungwoo’s thigh, where the shirt still reached.

“I want to.”

“Then do it.”

Their lips met. Jungwoo’s shoulders loosened. Doyoung was fully there. The world was waiting outside, but both of the men knew they would never let it in.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, hello, hello!
> 
> It's been almost two years since i posted the first part... sorry.  
> I didn't have a lot of insperation for this ans this summer I was enrolled into one of the best high schools in Sweden so my work load is bigger than ever before. But, yeah.
> 
> Drop a kudos and maybe a comment if you feel up to it. Constructive criticism is appreciated. :)
> 
> Also the tittle of both the fic and the series come from Veronica Maggio songs.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/notupforpolo)


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